Daniel Dennett's The Folly of Pretence argues that most religious believers don't really believe in their religious belief, but only in the usefulness of believing, and he calls upon them to stop the pretence of belief.

Dennett just can't believe that smart, educated people with access to the current store of knowledge would believe in something as utterly absurd as a God, a creator, some kind of afterlife, or any other variety of religious belief. This he has in common with some of our fellow anti-theists like Dawkins, Sam Harris or Michel Onfray. Dawkins' theory is that religious belief must be a function of indoctrination, and Dennett seems to think that believers just need the guts to admit that they don't believe.

Dennett may not like it, but the vast majority of believers are exactly that: believers. They don't believe in belief, they don't believe that it's good to believe in something. They believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in Mohammed or in Moses. And mind you: many of them are not stupid. Pope Benedict XVI is a highly learned man, and his predecessor John Paul II was positively brilliant; a polyglot, well-read, fearless mind who sincerely and truly believed in the whole range of Catholic dogma: Jesus' resurrection, the trinity, transubstantiation etc.

Even worse for Dennett: a significant proportion of scientists are religious believers of one sort or another, as recent studies show. Some of them are quite brilliant, like Professor Robert Auman, who was awarded the Nobel prize in Economics for his contribution to game theory, and he is an orthodox Jew.

What is Dennett's problem, then? Why can't he accept the facts, even though he professes to be guided by science? The reason for Dennett's disbelief in belief is that, like Dawkins, he does not want to give up on the Enlightenment narrative that says that humanity inevitably evolves towards higher rationality. He can simply not let go of the idea that if humans have access to education and knowledge, they will inevitably move towards being secular atheists like himself – and like me, for that matter.

I identify with Dennett in that I'm also struck by the recalcitrance of religious belief to the enormous advances of science. I wonder how people who are brilliant and have access to as much information as I have, have beliefs that seem utterly irrational to me. And, like Dennett, I cannot let go of the Enlightenment narrative, in spite of evidence to the contrary. In fact, I don't want to let go of it for two reasons: first, because it gives me some hope for humanity (and I live in an area of the world where hope is a pretty scarce commodity these days). Second, because fighting for Enlightenment values is a form of life that I'm deeply engaged in and gives my life meaning.

The findings of existential psychology show that humans need a cultural framework that provides them with symbolic immortality, or what is generally called meaning. This is the feeling that we are part of a larger whole, a religion, culture or movement that will survive our personal death. By contributing to this larger whole, we feel that we will not disappear without a trace. This is one of the major functions of cultural belief systems, and humans will often defend these belief systems with their lives; meaning and symbolic immortality, paradoxically, matter more to us than our individual lives.

Dennett doesn't see that, for most people, science and philosophy does not generate meaning, as it does for him. Dennett has created a remarkable oeuvre in which he has tried to work on notions like consciousness, freedom within the framework of scientific materialism, and this, I am sure, has contributed greatly to his feeling that his life is meaningful, because it connects to the vast project of the Enlightenment. But this doesn't hold true for the vast majority of human beings, and not even for the majority of scientists, as the proportion of religious scientists shows.

I don't have a positive picture about the role of religion in human affairs. Living in the Middle East where both sides of the conflict are willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters for the possession of sacred places certainly doesn't increase my respect for religion. But the combined impact of historical and psychological evidence makes me very skeptical about the possibility that most religious believers will drop their religious beliefs. Most, including the three Abrahamic religions have an enormous psychological upside: they do not only promise symbolic immortality, but immortality tout court. This gives them a tremendous evolutionary advantage over Enlightenment agnosticism or atheism.

I'm holding on to the Enlightenment project, but, as opposed to Dennett, I let the facts confuse me, even though I've made up my mind. It is of no use to think, contrary to the evidence, that most religious people just believe in belief. The majority actually believes what they say they do, and their actions are guided by these beliefs – often to the detriment of an area like the Middle East. Living with this knowledge, uncomfortable as it may be, is required of those who think science should be used to determine questions of fact.